Monday, March 28, 2016

Bay Area trumpeter
and composer Ian Carey's big, bold new jazz suite, Interview Music, is the
centerpiece of his like-titled new album, due for release by his Kabocha
Records on April 8.

The piece,
which was premiered in 2013 at the California Jazz Conservatory (formerly the
Jazzschool) in Berkeley, is a 45-minute, four-movement adventure and Carey's
longest composition to date. It is a vehicle for both his intricate writing and
the improvisational chops of his group, the Ian Carey Quintet+1, last heard on
2013's acclaimed album Roads & Codes (Kabocha Records), which received
praise from DownBeat and NPR, and appeared on many critics' best of 2013 lists.

The title of
Interview Music is "not about trying to get more interviews," quips
Carey, though he's not averse to the idea. It refers to a recent discussion in
the jazz world over the increasing percentage of new music being funded through
nonprofit commissions and grants, and whether that system favors what the late
pianist Mulgrew Miller called "interview music" -- high-concept,
programmatic works, often with subject matter like visual artists, literary
figures, or social movements.

Carey turned
the tables on the argument by writing a new extended piece for his ensemble
which specifically rejects that approach. Somewhat ironically, Interview Music
was funded by just such a grant (from the San Francisco Friends of Chamber
Music's Musical Grant Program), but Carey noted when applying that he
specifically did not want to go into the project with a pre-existing concept.
"I write first and figure out what it's about after I hear it," he
says. "If it's about anything!" Happily, the grant committee agreed,
and funded the piece's composition and premiere performance.

The result
is a challenging work which runs the gamut from intricate through-composed
sections to raucous group improvisation. His goals as a composer -- providing
individually tailored solo contexts for each improviser, utilizing the dense
counterpoint favored by his favorite composers, and moving beyond the
melody-solos-melody roadmap of more traditional jazz writing -- show up in
surprising ways, including a passacaglia (a classical form built around a
cycling melodic figure) and a movement in which the horns and rhythm section
each spend most of the time in completely separate tempos (borrowing a trick
from Carey's idol Charles Ives), but the improvisational talents of the ensemble
are never far from the forefront. "As complicated as the writing got, I
never wanted to lose sight of the fact that it's a jazz piece," Carey
said. "Improvisation and swing should still be the stars of the
show."

The new CD
closes with Carey's "Big Friday," which the composer calls "a
suite in miniature." It was recorded at the end of the Interview Music
session and "felt appropriately like a 'victory lap.'"

Originally
from upstate New York, Ian Carey, 41, lived in Folsom, California and Reno
before moving to New York City in 1994, where he attended the New School
(studying composition with Bill Kirchner, Henry Martin, and Maria Schneider,
and improvisation with Reggie Workman, Billy Harper, and Andrew Cyrille).
During a productive seven years in New York, he was able to perform with
musicians as varied as Ravi Coltrane, Ted Curson, Ali Jackson, Marion Brown,
and Eddie Bert, but when an opportunity arose to spend a summer in San
Francisco, he realized he was ready for a break from the Gotham grind.

He soon met
the musicians who would become the core of his quintet, which transformed over
the following twelve years and three albums (2005's Sink/Swim, 2010's
Contextualizin', and Roads & Codes) into a tightly-knit unit dedicated to
tackling Carey's original compositions. In 2012, looking to augment the group's
sonic palette, he expanded the group to the current six members. (He also
recorded a well-received duo date, 2014's Duocracy, with pianist Ben Stolorow.)

"For
me, there is something for everyone in the music," says Carey of Interview
Music. "It works as jazz, with enough red meat for the straight-ahead
crowd. And it's heavily influenced by chamber music, so it can appeal to people
who are into that. Still, I didn't know how it would go over. When we performed
it as part of a chamber series and people responded positively to it -- regular
jazz music fans and chamber music listeners, but also people who just decided
to give it a listen -- I was so gratified."

The Ian
Carey Quintet+1 will be performing Interview Music and more at the Sound Room,
2147 Broadway, Oakland, on Saturday 4/9, 8:00pm.